


Special Affinity

by skeptique



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 5 Times, 5+1 Things, Accidental Bonding, Auror Partners, Explicit Consent, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Inadvertent Mind Reading, Legilimency (Harry Potter), M/M, Mutual Pining, Oral Sex, POV Alternating, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:34:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28390971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skeptique/pseuds/skeptique
Summary: Auror partners Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy seem to have a special affinity for getting into convoluted accidental bonds. Once is a mistake, twice is bad luck, and five times...well five times seems like carelessness, doesn’t it?Or, 5 times it was a bonding curse and 1 time it wasn’t.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 34
Kudos: 385
Collections: DrarryLove





	Special Affinity

**Author's Note:**

> With many thanks to my beta [@the-starryknight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thestarryknight/pseuds/thestarryknight) who rescued this in more ways than one.

**I. Draco**

The first time it happens is instructive.

“The lab is unstable!” Draco calls to Harry, who is sprinting toward the fire. Draco knows Harry is reckless. He has shown that more than enough times in Auror training. Even now years later, as a Senior Auror, Harry is often the first into an active situation.

“There could be someone inside,” Harry says. “Look! There’s someone inside.”

They spot the same shadowy movements in a smudged and cracked window from the ground below. Even before the building had been half-engulfed in flames, it was a flimsy thing, made of a stack of shoddily Transfigured shipping containers in this forsaken industrial park in Manchester. Harry is looking at him with a question, and despite his recklessness Draco knows Harry won’t go ahead without him.

“Go, let’s go.” They make quick work of the stairs and see a tall broad woman trying to fight through the flames to retrieve something. She is desperate, wand upheld, trying to use a charm to blow back the fire but feeding the growing flames. She has to be involved if she’s still here. But Harry would say that no one deserves to die over something so minor. So Draco grits his teeth and draws up his cloak and its protective spells and steps in front of Harry.

“Ma’am!” Draco calls. The woman—definitely a suspect now as she cradles three vials to her chest—startles and Apparates with a loud crack and before Draco can signal Harry to do the same, they both go crashing through the floor.

Draco has woken up in St Mungo’s often enough that he is not immediately alarmed by the flat grey walls of the Auror’s Ward. But as he shifts he realizes that his hand is firmly being held by Harry. He turns to find that the Healers have pushed together two hospital beds and lowered the guardrails. Harry is asleep.

Draco pulls his hand out of Harry’s only to be hit with a wave of pain so severe it feels like someone is trying to scoop out most of his internal organs with a blunt pickaxe. He gasps and Harry jolts awake too, holding his head.

“Fuck,” Harry says. Draco scrabbles blindly, and as soon as his hand touches Harry’s arm, the pain subsides immediately.

“Auror Potter, Auror Malfoy?” Healer Tadenik runs into the unit with 3 mediwizards behind her. “Glad you’re awake.”

“Why the fuck does it hurt when we aren’t touching?” Harry says groggily. Draco might have said that more politely. He likes Tadenik most of the time.

“We don’t know,” Healer Tadenik replies. “We think...”

“You must be very good friends if the curse bound you that tightly,” a mediwizard says on their second day. Draco doesn’t say anything, doesn’t look at Harry.

They end up spending three long days in the Auror’s Ward before they can reverse-engineer all the illegal potions and dissolve the magical bond via a counter-potion that tastes like peppery syrup. They passed the time amicably, like it was a stakeout, with wizarding chess and replays of Quidditch games on the wireless.

Still, Draco tries not to think too hard about why it feels like he’s lost something when finally, he can unhook his bare ankle from Harry’s.

* * *

**II. Harry**

The second time, Harry is well and truly pissed off before they even get to St Mungo’s. The perpetrator escaped, but not before flinging a cursed jewellery box at both of them. It hit because they were both distracted. Draco’s attention was taken up with keeping the walls from collapsing on top of them. Harry was distracted by Draco, and that’s nearly unforgivable.

Bad enough that he sometimes thinks of the way Draco’s pinky had curled around his. Worse still, that there is a very stupid part of him that enjoys the weight of Draco’s hand in his once more, even if it’s forced.

This case has been nothing but tedious and heartbreaking. Dark objects had been showing up in Muggle places for months. They finally caught one of the culprits and tracked him to his house, only for Harry to make a mess of things. If he gets back within the next six hours, Harry can still try to get a trace on the jewellery box from Mysteries, Draco can pull records of the property from Revenue. If they both work at this they can salvage this before this suspect disappears like the others. Harry can’t wait for someone else to pick up the case file. They are the only ones that know this case inside and out.

“Bonding curse,” Draco says shortly once they arrive.

They are both more than familiar with all the top healers. Harry manages to feel slightly embarrassed about it, while Draco has a ranked hierarchy for which ones are great and which are “little better than summoning a mirror and poking oneself with a wand." Draco relaxes when Healer Ahmed enters the room, so Harry does as well. Healer Ahmed is apologetic but firm.

“We’ve called St Xanthus in Bonn, but it will take at least a day to hear back from the expert there. She’s on maternity leave.”

“Is there any other way to get rid of this?” Draco asks, an insistent note creeping into his tone. “We have to report back."

"Ah..." Healer Ahmed waits a long moment before saying, "I don't advise it, but if you were to consummate the bond, it would still be reversible."

"Gilead's Theorem?" Draco confirms. The term is meaningless to Harry, but Draco has always been the researcher of their partnership. Healer Ahmed nods.

“What does that mean?” Harry interrupts. He knows what consummated means in this context, but he wants to know whether he’s clear on the suggestion.

“If a physical bond were established, you would be able to go without touch and we could terminate the completed bond at a later time.”

"You're not—" is the first thing Harry thinks to blurt.

"I am not. Bisexual," Draco answers neatly. This information is like a bludger to the back of the head.

"You never said!" Harry says.

That is not the most important matter at hand, but it's easier than thinking about how he is in some horrible upside-down world. Draco is propositioning him, but only because of a cursed box. In Harry's fantasies this always happened because one late night, Draco had realized Harry had been missing in his life and their friendship could be more.

Instead they are in the broad daylight of a hospital with a witness and the astringent scent of antiseptic potions stinging his nose. Draco's already tapping his foot impatiently as if he'd rather not waste time.

"I never said," Draco agrees mildly. Draco seems to read the exact moment Harry gives in. They do not have three days to catch the kind of people who would plant Dark objects in playgrounds. Harry turns to Healer Ahmed. "Can we be discharged?"

"I don't advise—"

"We'll sign the waiver," Draco says.

The last thing he remembers really well is the pattern of grey tile in Draco's sitting room. He has never been here before and he’s surprised it looks so minimalist. The palette is muted, Draco has just one stiff backed couch for two, and everything is neat but dusty. Draco manoeuvres him against a wall. Harry wants to ask if they can at least do this in a bedroom.

"We have to go back to the Ministry," Draco says. He is so close that Harry can see the tiny freckle on the left side of his nose.

"I know."

“Are you okay with this?"

Harry nods once.

"Are you sure? We can wait it out if you want." Harry nods again.

Then Draco sinks to his knees and Harry is speechless. His head thumps back violently against the wall. His jeans and pants are pushed down roughly and Draco's mouth is on his cock, all at once, with no preamble. He can't watch. It's too much. Because it is clear that Draco has, in fact, done this before. Harry has been trying not to think about it. He thinks Draco might be laughing at him but no one he's dated has ever been so abrupt about it.

"That's so—" Harry moans so loudly he is embarrassed. Harry tries to focus on the smaller details: the weight of Draco’s arm pinning his hips, the warmth of his other hand rubbing soothing circles on his upper thigh. Draco continues to suck him off efficiently until Harry grips his shoulder too hard.

"That should do it," Draco says. He lets go of Harry and there is no pain. Just leftover aftershocks, and the absolutely mind numbing sight of Draco swiping the few drops of come he missed into his mouth with his thumb.

"We'll take the Floo back."

* * *

**III. Draco**

The third time it almost starts to feel like an elaborate cosmic joke.

Since Hogwarts, Draco has learned there are a great many types of magical beings in the world who were not covered in his textbooks and do not particularly care for being found out. The one they had chased out of the crime scene recovery turned on them.

Whatever she is, she has taken the form of a elderly woman but something is off about her eyes. They glitter too brightly. She moves too quickly. She feels like too much magic is contained in her body.

"Look, we just want to know if you've seen anything," Draco says, his palms upturned. He has stowed his wand because he knows from experience many magical creatures hate them. Her shoulders relax a fraction.

"I'm not a scavenger," she says, rather bluntly. "I would not feed there. This smells like a witch."

"Thank you," Harry says. Draco isn't really interested in running through more of Cardiff pursuing this creature. He doesn't work for the Department of Mysteries and backup is at least five minutes away.

"But boys, wouldn't you rather be doing something else?"

Draco tilts his head to the side. There is something about the way this creature feels that abruptly lets him know she...

"You're reading our minds, aren't you?" Harry says. Draco doesn't have time to quibble that this oily-feeling probe is not like any Legilimency he's ever known. Harry's kept his wand at his side but even he is not quick enough to block when she casts something wordlessly. The old woman gives them a rueful smile, snaps her fingers and disappears into thin air.

Harry seems furious the moment they are drawn together. Draco is not surprised. He had been thinking of the last bond curse when this happened. The guilt warring with the practicality, the way Harry had gulped down air after he came, the satisfaction that Harry wasn't immune to him. No doubt the image had inspired their current predicament.

They are at St Mungo's yet again, with another Healer. Healer Smythe is competent, but with the bedside manner of a frozen turnip.

"Bonding curses vary widely, Auror Potter," Healer Smythe says.

"You don't know how to reverse this, do you?" Draco interrupts.

"It's obscure magic, Auror Malfoy, but there are promising—"

Harry gives Draco a meaningful look. Their hands are still clasped.

"Worked last time," Harry says.

"Worth a shot," Draco says.

The excuse is flimsy.

But what Draco doesn't have this time is the element of surprise. Harry is the one that apparates them to his flat. Maybe he was competitive or incensed Draco had one over on him.

Either way Harry doesn't even let them get out of the entryway before he kisses Draco, impatient and deep. Draco wants to protest that this isn't necessary but he likes it so much. Then Harry is slow and deliberate, like wringing the last drips of honey from a jar. He undresses Draco with care.

"I'll make this good for you," Harry says. His voice is low, and sweet. When he gazes at Draco through his lashes it makes it seem like Harry wants this and that's wishful thinking on Draco's part. So Draco closes his eyes, gives himself over to Harry's mouth and comes an embarrassingly short time later.

Harry gives him a quick smile while he casts a quick cleaning charm on both of them.

"Can we go get lunch before the Ministry? I'm starved. I forgot to eat breakfast."

Draco dresses and follows him in a daze.

* * *

**IV. Harry**

The fourth time makes Harry feel like the universe might be repaying him for the overabundance of luck from eleven to eighteen. He has run out of his life’s supply perhaps, and now the universe will dangle what he wants in front of him mockingly.

They had it good before all of this. They worked well together, went out to the pub every once in a while, they knew each other’s friends and families. They were friends, Harry thought.

So, of all the inconvenient parts of being bonded several times, one of them is that apparently Harry's brain has begun to associate Draco’s close, sustained physical contact as interest. Nothing has changed. But now if Draco puts his arm across the back of Harry's chair, Harry pays attention.

"How did we get assigned to evidence archives? Isn't that why we have Ministry archivists?" Harry says, temporarily distracted from the truly remarkable depths of his one-sided crush by Draco's scowling.

"I did a rotation there as a trainee. They leave the dangerous stuff to Auror management."

Harry rolls his eyes. They do too much fieldwork for Senior Aurors and they both know it, but he didn't particularly want to solve that by spending a week in the dusty depths of the Ministry's sub-basement. Their assigned section is through three vault doors.The lanterns light one small portion of this cavernous mass of shelving at a time. The sound is muffled and time seems slower down there.

The week was going relatively well until Friday. Then their hands both brush a forgotten orb filed in the 1860s that had dropped off the card catalogue. Harry is now familiar with the feeling of a bonding curse snapping into place. They are alone. When Harry fists his hands in Draco's robes to pull him close, they are _alone_.

“Fuck,” Draco says, stunned.

Harry waits until Draco leans forward and brushes his lips tentatively. The bond fizzes to life in Harry’s veins. This is something different than the others. They should stay away from each other so it could dissipate. There is no pain when Harry lets go out of shock. They should go straight to St Mungo's.

Instead, they spend a long half hour in the stacks kissing. Harry lets the feeling of the shelf digging into his back ground him as he relaxes into Draco. This doesn't burn hot enough to require more. In fact, the bond is a steady calmness that soothes as Draco demands long, hot kisses from Harry and he gives them up too eagerly to have anything to do with a curse. He wants this more than he's ever wanted anything.

They finish their work in silence after the curse dissipates, no doubt weakened by time. Harry wants to say something to Draco but he's not sure what he wants to happen. Should they pretend this never happened? This is so out of bounds for a work friendship that it's on Mars. On his last glance, Draco seems perfectly composed, so Harry ducks his head and keeps working.

* * *

**V.** **Draco**

The final time is different. They are, unsurprisingly, hit by a bonding curse. But this one can't be stabilized and doesn't require touch. What it does is link their thoughts.

Draco has some defenses. Harry has none. In Auror training when everyone picked a specialty course, Harry had said tersely ‘none of that' to Draco and avoided Legilimency altogether. Draco went to defensive mind magic; Harry had done a course in advanced weaponry.

“Do you know how to build a mental wall?” Draco tries to help Harry by talking him through basic Occlumency exercises but he can feel when Harry’s attention wavers. Harry is taking shallow breaths, too shallow for Draco’s liking.

Images bubble to the surface. Harry has been thinking of him, certainly. Draco sees his fantasy-self sliding two fingers into himself and arching beautifully off a bed that is probably Harry’s. He would blush but he is trying to focus on helping Harry. He clears his throat.

"I'm sorry," Harry says. Draco pretends he doesn't know what Harry is talking about.

Draco had always thought Harry was emotional but now he can feel it. The desire, the embarrassment, the longing. Something warmer.

Fuck. This is much worse than it being one-sided because it could happen. He could do everything he's seeing. Flashes of himself on his knees again. A rather unauthorized use for the main case desk. Sparring in trainee gear although Draco is not aware of any procedural holds that require biting along Harry's throat while he moaned.

The break is actually simple for this one, and St Mungo's does it in five minutes, and discharges them with a note for both of them to go home and sleep.

"Will you be alright at home alone?" Harry says. His expression is so sweetly concerned. Draco can deal with that. He can't deal with Harry rubbing his thumb on Draco's wrist in a public hallway where anyone could see. He looks the way he did before Draco kissed him in the Ministry basement. Expectant and shockingly open.

"I'll be fine," Draco said shortly. He can feel Harry looking after him. He goes home.

The next day when Harry arrives in their office, Draco says, "I can't be your partner anymore."

"Draco. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—I would never have acted on what you saw."

"I don't know what I saw," Draco lies neatly. In any case that was a fantasy. Draco knows he doesn't look like that in real life. "That's not why."

"Draco—"

"I already put in the paperwork last evening." He is being pragmatic, Draco tells himself. There are rules. Harry will be fine in the long run.

And if Harry still wants Draco when it is safe, he can have him.

* * *

**VI. Harry**

Harry didn't realize how used to Draco he is until he is gone. They see each other once at the lifts and Draco raises a casual hand in greeting, but otherwise has been nowhere to be found. Draco’s new partner is the one to pick up case files.

Fielder is fine. Trustworthy. She even has Healer training which is useful if paired with Harry. But he doesn't think about her otherwise. Maybe that's an absurd bar to clear when Draco was an obsession of his since he was eleven.

Once, he manages to corner Draco after a department-wide briefing but as he approaches, Draco shakes his head subtly. Harry feels hurt but he changes directions and goes back to his desk by a long, circuitous route.

It is three months on the dot when Draco pops up in their former shared office again.

"Hi," he says. He sounds nervous.

"Hello," Harry says coolly.

"Can we talk?" They are both off shift now. Harry shrugs. He allows Draco to wait for him to pack his bag, to walk with him down the hallway. At least half the lifts are under repair so Draco backs into Harry inch by inch as their lift car fills. Draco places a hand on Harry's bicep but to Harry's surprise it's not to make distance between them. Harry waits until they are in Muggle London and have been walking side by side for some time to demand answers.

"So talk," Harry says.

"You're angry with me," Draco says. "I know."

No. Harry is mostly stung by the realization he had over-invested in Draco Malfoy to such an extent. He shrugs again. "You have every right to go looking for another partner. I imagine it would be uncomfortable to realize that your coworker harboured inappropriate thoughts about you."

"That's not what—"

"I did think we were friends enough that you would tell me first."

Draco didn't ask. He just doesn't let go of Harry once they get to Harry’s doorstep. He leans in closer.

"Fuck. Is that what you think happened?" Draco says. His expression is pinched. "I was protecting our jobs. The only thing that stood between us both getting fired was Healer-patient confidentiality. We should have reported it the first time we..." He turns a little pink.

"So what then? You just switch partners and don't speak to me for three _fucking_ months?"

"I know. I know. But Robards suspected something with the medical clearances. And if we wanted to keep clear of the fraternization rules, it can't look like this started while we were partners.”

"It can't look like _what_ started? What are we doing?" Harry asks.

"I want to date you," Draco says. "I want to date you and I don't want to lose my job over it."

"And you couldn't have said anything? Three months Draco. I thought I did something."

"You didn't. But I thought it wasn’t serious for you before the last time. Dedicated to work."

Harry snorts. "There's a new one. A blowjob for Ministry and country. You really do think I'm a saint."

"How was I supposed to know?"

"I was flirting with you!"

"You flirt with the bartender for a top-up and half the department for first pick of case files. Forgive me for not thinking it signified anything."

Having apparently tired of chatting, Draco puts a hand on the back on Harry's neck and waits. His face is upturned slightly.

Harry seizes the chance to really kiss him. To re-learn the curve of his bottom lip, to run a possessive hand down his back, to lace their hands together and hook one ankle around his.

"I feel like I'm at a disadvantage here, because I don't know what you were thinking," Harry murmurs.

"I'll show you," Draco promises. "But we will go on a date," Draco is letting him go reluctantly, Harry thinks.

"You won’t come in?" Harry asks. Draco gives him a final kiss and steps back onto a lower step.

"If I come in, there’s no bonding curse to blame this time," Draco says. Draco's always worrying. But fortune favours the brave so Harry lets his tone remain casual.

"Why would anyone be to blame?" Harry says. "There's a new place down the road I'd like to try tomorrow morning."

Harry turns around and after a brief pause, he leaves his front door open. It closes behind him from the inside.


End file.
